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A coup d'etat is sufficiently electrifying that, even if it's happened a dozen times before in Thailand and even if it was seemingly an inevitable result of the kingdom's intractable political divide, this week's move by the generals was enough to put Bangkok front and center amid a rush of real news from Asia.

Will Thailand's latest martial-law leave more lasting prints than the previous one less than a decade ago? That is the big question for Thais, who would like something to watch on TV other than the patriotic music that censors are force-feeding them; for tourists, who'd like to be out carousing beyond the 10 p.m curfew; and for investors, who wonder about the sagging domestic market as well as any barriers to industrial output for regional trade channels. Some fear a further violent turn in the streets, with 2010's riots being a forerunner. (For now, the stock index and currency have stabilized post-coup.)

Red Shirts in 2010 got a taste of Army green. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Oh, and the future of representative democracy? That's going to take longer to answer. For now, most observers see Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha's sudden command as a win for the royalists who have been trying to block another popular election mandate for the Shinawatras and their Puea Thai party. What Thaksin, Yingluck and their bunch, including the supportive Red Shirts, have started in terms of an activated rural and poor vote will be difficult to undo in a world that likes universal suffrage. The best hope is for a new constitution that imposes "legitimate" layers of restraint on the popular will to protect traditional economic and social claims. Right now the politicians are under guard and James Madison would be challenged to untie the Thai knot of distrust.

Both short- and longer-run outcomes will be influenced by the aftermath of ailing 86-year-old King Bhumibol's rule. It might be assumed that, once a voice from the palace is heard, it would be supportive of the "National Peace and Order Maintaining Council" and cautionary to the populists. But as the latest Economist edition describes, royal palace maneuvering may have it playing a surprising role.

What's clear is that in many international eyes, Thailand bears an unfortunate political resemblance to Egypt at the moment: An old guard, backed by the military, displacing a popularly chosen if unsavory government. Let's just hope there are no mass death sentences in the Land of Smiles.

Clearly Thailand is not the economic basket case that Egypt is. But it's broken in parts also: The economy has slipped into contraction this year, even as debt levels have risen alarmingly. A senior adviser to the state Board of Investment, who was making the rounds in New York this week like some orbiting satellite without Mission Control, assured me that the downturn was traceable to stymied government spending. But various other reports make clear that private activity has slowed, probably in part because of political tensions, and that major outside investors are having doubts, too.

What Ajarin Pattanapanchai's agency wanted to push was auto- and aerospace-parts production, as well as medical-device manufacturing. These are perceived to be growing opportunities for industrial Thailand, even as its chemical plants--long a beneficiary of cheap local hydrocarbons--face more competition in a world suffused with natural gas. North America is the fourth biggest Foreign Direct Investment source, behind Japan (lately nearly half), China and the ASEAN bloc. Publicity like the last week's will not help the cause in distant precincts like New York. Maybe the Asian investors are more jaded and will keep coming if the roads, tracks, runways and docks are clear. But even Honda, watching a drop in Thai auto sales, is balking in public.

Thailand remains blessed with a generally favorable business climate, a strategic location (including as an entry point to frontier economies like Myanmar) and a global orientation. The place has bumped along through most turmoil--not just the political fighting but the SARS outbreak and calamitous flooding, as well as the West's post-Lehman fallout, or what Thais particularly like to call the "Hamburger Crisis." Only the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 laid Thailand low.

Likewise, it has a reservoir of international goodwill. Thailand's rubs are nearly all insular; only Cambodia has gotten crosswise. Authoritarian rule, in and of itself, won't bother China, which would like to court the Thais diplomatically anyhow. But it is the more developed economies that are of most concern, because it is they who've found Thailand a favorable base for value-added output. If they back off, either because military rule is an affront or because it fails to resolve the impasse that was already curtailing commerce, what is now an economic divide will become an economic chasm.

These deeper matters will play out over months or longer. For now Thais and their guests will hope they can manage safely to work, shop and party. And, no trivial matter, keep using social media.